For a company that many thought would be in trouble by year’s end, Sprint has seemingly taken the mobile world by storm. In fact, there’s more Sprint coming up in my Android feed than both Verizon and AT&T for the first time I can remember. That didn’t happen even before the release date of the Evo 4G. So what exactly is the littlest of the Big 3 up to now a days? From where I’m standing Sprint has some big plans for the future:
For a company that is known to many as “That carrier with really cheap prices but a terrible selection of phones,” they’re starting to offer the world quite a few more goodies. In fact, one could argue that Sprint is very aware of this idea of their company and is trying to change that “terrible selection” part.
Phones
Sprint again tried to be the first in the world of Android when they announced the first dual screen phone, the Kyocera Echo. While the phone probably didn’t sell as well as they hoped, I think it was the start of Sprint’s plans to bring more powerful Android phones to the carrier. And the onslaught didn’t stop there. The Evo 3D and the Evo View were announced to be released on June 24th. The Evo 3D, of course, was to be the successor of their wildly popular Evo 4G. Speaking of which, the Evo 4G seems to be known as the grandfather of the big Android phones. Just looking around at peers, even the Evo 4G is still doing well. This is good news for the Sprint execs who are banking on the Evo 3D. Adding to their Android lineup, the infamous Galaxy S2 is rumored to be released on July 24th; one month after the Evo 3D becomes available. And then of course, Sprint is teaming up with Motorola to bring us the immensely powerful Photon 4G.
But not only is Sprint seemingly backing Android, rumor has it that Sprint will be bringing aboard Apple’s golden chicken, the iPhone. Even if the rumor is true about the iPhone being more expensive, the fact that Sprint is trying to bring in another flagship smart phone should be comforting for Sprint customers: No longer is the company just satisfied with high customer satisfaction, quality service, and cheap prices. Sprint’s smart phone collection may never rival that of Verizon’s, but if this is what we’ll get for half the monthly price of Verizon, you can be assured that I’m okay with that.
4G
It’s no secret that Sprint was the first to bring about the 4G revolution. Sprint partnered up with Clearwire in order to bring Wimax to as many places as possible. Just look at how many phones they’re bringing out with the 4G tag slapped on: Evo, Epic, Conquer, Evo 3D, Photon, the Nexus S, and a few more. For a company that just released its service about a year ago, that’s a pretty large selection by my estimates.
Then there was LTE. Many people questioned how Sprint was in backing Wimax in this 4G fight, myself included. After reexamining it though, I’m starting to believe Sprint new what it was doing. First of all, Wimax was ready at the time, LTE wasn’t. For a company that wanted to be the first to 4G they had little options. And even though LTE has pretty much won the mobile battle for “4G,” Wimax isn’t done yet. In fact, Wimax-2 might be closer than you think and boy is it pretty. Neither Wimax or LTE right now are actually considered “4G.” In fact, only Wimax-2 and LTE Advanced will be called 4G universally. The difference is Wimax-2 has been tested and approved already, and its download speeds like to sit around the range of 300 Mbps. Yes, 300. Again, this is all banking on Clearwire not going out of business before it can be rolled out, but the fact that the option is there makes me wonder if the Sprint execs saw something most of the world didn’t. And if they didn’t? Well, they covered that too.
It’s not secret that Sprint has said they would consider LTE. They’ve also let the world know that their massive spectrum would allow them to support both Wimax and LTE. What the world didn’t know was that Sprint might already be testing LTE. Sprint is essentially saying “Hey, if Wimax falls we’ll just catch you with LTE..” Maybe those Sprint execs really do know what they’re doing.
Many people have questioned the decisions of Sprint to buy Nextel and Clearwire. In fact, many questioned whether Sprint should push some other OS since Verizon had a hold on Android and the iPhone was stuck with AT&T. Regardless of what you think Sprint in the past, the fact of the matter is is that they are currently all over the news and bringing in more subscribers than ever before. While the AT&T/T-Mobile merger may be the deciding factor, something tells me Sprint is no longer looking to just be the “none of the above” option of buyers when they’ve been compared with AT&T and Verizon.
What do you think of Sprint’s future? Let us know in the comments below!